Liberalism and its discontents

Slavoj ZizekABC Religion and Ethics
26 Oct 2012

The problem with liberal individualism is that it is parasitic upon some preceding form of socialization, which it simultaneously undermines, thereby cutting off the branch it is sitting on.
Credit: Publicity Image: Blinder Films

For liberalism, at least in its radical form, the desire to subject people to an ethical ideal - regarded as universal and thus universally binding - is the mother of all crimes, "the crime which contains all crimes," for it amounts to the brutal imposition of one's own view onto others, and is thus the root cause of civil disorder. This is why, liberals claim, if one wants to establish civil peace and tolerance, the first pre-condition is to get rid of any moral temptation: politics should be thoroughly purged of moral ideals and rendered "realistic," taking people as they are, counting on their true nature, not on moral exhortations.

The paradigm here, in many ways, is the way that the market operates: human nature is egotistic and there is no way to change it, so what is needed is a mechanism that would make private vices work for common good. Hence a fully self-conscious liberal should intentionally limit his altruistic readiness to sacrifice his own good for the good of others, aware that the most efficient way to act for the common good is to follow his private egotism. Here we have the logical obverse of the motto "private vices, public benefits" - namely, "private goodness, public disaster."

There is in liberalism, from its very beginning, a tension between individual freedom and the objective mechanisms which regulate the behaviour of a crowd, as was already observed by Benjamin Constant who clearly formulated this tension: everything is moral in individuals, but everything is physical in crowds; everybody is free as individual, but a cog in a machine in a crowd.

The two faces of liberalism

The inner tension of this project is discernible in two aspects of liberalism: market liberalism and political liberalism. As Jean-Claude Michea has brilliantly argued, these two aspects of liberalism are linked to two political meanings of "Right": the political Right insists on market economy, the politically-correct Left insists on the defence of human rights - often its sole remaining raison d'etre.

Although the tension between these two aspects of liberalism is irreducible, they are nonetheless inextricably linked, like the two sides of the same coin. And so, today, the meaning of "liberalism" swings between the two poles of economic liberalism (free market individualism, opposition to strong state regulation, and so on) and political liberalism or libertarianism (with the accent on equality, social solidarity, permissiveness, and so on).

The point is that, while one cannot decide through some close analysis which is the "true" liberalism, one also cannot resolve the deadlock by way of trying to propose a kind of "higher" synthesis of the two, much less through some clear distinction between the two senses of the term. The tension between the two meanings is inherent to the very content that "liberalism" endeavours to designate: this ambiguity, far from signalling the limits of our understanding, points to the innermost "truth" of the notion of liberalism itself.

Traditionally, each "face" of liberalism necessarily appears as the opposite of the other face: liberal advocates of multiculturalist tolerance, as a rule, fight against economic liberalism and try to protect the vulnerable from the ravages of unencumbered market forces, while free-market liberals, as a rule, advocate conservative family values.

We thus get a kind of double paradox: the traditionalist Right supports the market economy while ferociously fighting the culture and mores it engenders; while its counterpoint, the multiculturalist Left, fights against the market (though less and less these days, as Michea notes) while enthusiastically enforcing the ideology it engenders. (Today, it should be said, we seem to be entering a new era in which both aspects can be combined: figures like Bill Gates pose as market radicals and as multiculturalist humanitarians.)

The dark side of liberal moralism

Here we encounter the basic paradox of liberalism. An anti-ideological and anti-utopian stance is inscribed into the very heart of the liberal vision: liberalism conceives itself as a "politics of lesser evil," its ambition is to bring about the "least evil society possible," thus preventing greater evil, since it considers any attempt directly to impose a positive Good as the ultimate source of all evil.

Winston Churchill's quip about democracy being the worst of all political systems, with the exception of all the other, holds even better for liberalism. Such a view is sustained by a profound pessimism about human nature: man is egotistic and envious animal, if one builds a political system which appeals to his goodness and altruism, the result will be the worst kind terror (recall that both Jacobins and Stalinists presupposed human virtue).

The liberal critique of the "tyranny of the Good" comes at a price: the more its program permeates society, the more it turns into its opposite. The claim to want nothing but the lesser evil, once asserted as the principle of the new global order, gradually takes on the very features of the enemy it claims to oppose. In fact, the global liberal order clearly presents itself as the best of all possible worlds: its modest rejection of utopias ends with imposing its own market-liberal utopia which will become reality when we subject ourselves to the mechanisms of the market and universal human rights.

But as every observer of the deadlocks of political correctness knows, the separation of legal justice from moral goodness - which should be relativised and historicized - ends up in a claustrophobic, oppressive moralism brimming with resentment. Without any "organic" social substance grounding the standards of what George Orwell approvingly referred to as "common decency," the minimalist program of laws intended to do little more than prevent individuals from encroaching upon each other (annoying or "harassing" each other) turns into an explosion of legal and moral rules, an endless process of legalization and moralization, presented as "the fight against all forms of discrimination." If there are no shared mores in place to influence the law, just the bare fact of subjects "harassing" other subjects, then who - in the absence of such mores - will decide what counts as "harassment"?

For instance, in France, there are associations of obese people which demand that all public campaigns against obesity and for healthy eating habits be stopped, since they hurt the self-esteem of obese persons. The militants of Veggie Pride condemn the "specism" of meat-eaters (who discriminate against animals, privileging the human animal - for them, a particularly disgusting form of "fascism") and demand that "vegetophobia" should be treated as a kind of xenophobia and proclaimed a crime. This could be extended to include those fighting for the right to incest-marriage, consensual murder, cannibalism, and so on.

The problem is here the obvious arbitrariness of the proliferation of these ever-new rules. Take child sexuality, for example: one can argue that its criminalization is an unwarranted discrimination, but one can also argue that children should be protected from sexual molestation by adults. And we could go on: the same people who advocate the legalization of soft drugs usually support the prohibition of smoking in public places; the same people who protest against the patriarchal abuse of small children in our societies, worry when someone condemns members of foreign cultures who live among us for doing exactly this, claiming that this is a case of meddling with other "ways of life."

It is thus for necessary structural reasons that this "fight against discrimination" is an endless process endlessly postponing its final point: a society freed of all moral prejudices which, as Jean-Claude Michea puts it, "would be on this very account a society condemned to see crimes everywhere."

The ideological coordinates of such a liberal multiculturalism are determined by the two features of our "postmodern" zeitgeist: universalized multiculturalist historicism (all values and rights are historically specific, any elevation of them into universal notions to be imposed onto others is cultural imperialism at its most violent) and universalized "hermeneutics of suspicion" (all "high" ethical motifs are generated and sustained by "low" motifs of resentment and envy - say, the call to sacrifice one's life for a higher Cause is either a mask for manipulation by those who need war to sustain their power and wealth, or else a pathological expression of masochism).

Bonds of trust and debt

There is a problem with this liberal vision of which every good anthropologist, psychoanalyst, or even observant social critic like Francis Fukuyama, is aware: it cannot stand on its own, it is parasitic upon some preceding form of what is usually referred to as "socialization," which it simultaneously undermines, thereby cutting off the branch on which it is sitting.

In the market - and, more generally, in the social exchange based on the market - individuals encounter each other as free rational subjects, but such subjects are the result of a complex previous process which concerns symbolic debt, authority and, above all, trust. In other words, the domain of exchanges is never purely symmetrical: it is an a priori condition for each of the participants to give something without return so that he can participate in the game of give-and-take.

Of course, the market is the domain of egotistical cheating and lying; however, as Jacques Lacan taught us, in order for a lie to function, it has to present itself and be taken as truth - which is to say, the dimension of Truth has to be already established. Kant missed the necessity of unwritten, disavowed, but necessary rules for every legal edifice - it is only such rules that provide the "substance" on which laws can properly function. The exemplary case of the efficiency of such unwritten rules is the famed example of "potlatch."

In market exchange, two complementary acts occur simultaneously (I pay and I get what I paid for), so that the act of exchange does not lead to a permanent social bond, but just a momentary exchange between atomized individuals who, immediately afterwards, return to their solitude. In potlatch, however, the time elapsed between my giving a gift and the other side returning it to me creates a social link which lasts (for a time, at least): we are all linked together with bonds of debt. From this standpoint, money can be defined as the means which enable us to have contacts with others without entering in proper relations with them.

This atomized society, in which we have contact with others without entering into proper relations with them, is the presupposition of liberalism.

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Comments (79)

Barj :

Isn’t the brutality of imposing one’s own view onto others what religious codes and those who enforce them do, with the treat of hellfire, or something like it, for all who do not conform?

Now, I would not call religion “the mother of all crimes,” partly because that blatantly sexist description itself should be a crime but mainly because I believe in free speech so long as it respects the rights of others.

I don’t know why you had to drag politics into an argument about ethics. It just confuses the issue. Churchill seems to have known that but sadly I do not believe his quip about democracy holds true for human nature. When I think of the best and worst personality traits, I have to admit that I score lower than my dog on all except gluttony.

We are egotistic and envious animals and a lot more besides but, with all our faults, we know how to love and care for others.

Of course legal justice must be separated from moral goodness. Legal justice has its faults, I admit, but after centuries of painstaking legal work followed by countless polls, and challenges, legal justice has been pretty well defined and is still being defined. The meaning of moral goodness, on the other hand, is anyone’s guess.

I don’t know what kind of mores you think should influence the laws. Do you mean referendums? They might not be perfect but they are, I believe, the best we have. Second to referendums and hopefully cheaper is the political system we have.

Ralph :

07 Nov 2012 4:57:29pm

I experienced the conclusion of the article two weeks ago with political correctness being the atomising agent.I went with a group of 13 uni students to Koori Heritage site. All students from the University of Melbourne, white middle class and naturally politically correct with great sympathy for Australian Indigenous culture. Not one stayed after the tour to say hello to the Aboriginal tour guide Nadeen. So long as you are politically correct there is no need to involve yourself with people of another race.

Robin :

02 Nov 2012 10:53:24pm

I have previously said that Zizek is presenting a straw version of liberalism and some have disagreed with me. Let's look at this more closely.

He says:

"Here we encounter the basic paradox of liberalism. An anti-ideological and anti-utopian stance is inscribed into the very heart of the liberal vision: liberalism conceives itself as a "politics of lesser evil," its ambition is to bring about the "least evil society possible," thus preventing greater evil, since it considers any attempt directly to impose a positive Good as the ultimate source of all evil."

Now compare this to the themes promoted by the Gay Liberation movement (which is surely more representative than "Veggie Pride").

This movement promoted ideas like "liberation", "pride", "celebrating diversity" and so on.

To claim that these were not intended as positive good or that they are "lesser evils" is absurd.

Hudson Godfrey :

03 Nov 2012 11:49:38am

Robin,

Are you hedging your bets with "straw version" rather than "straw man" here? His argument may in your opinion be flimsily constructed, as of straw, without his having deliberately constructed distortions of opposing views so as to make it easy for him to demolish them, as in the classic straw man fallacy. I think we need to get that out of the way because, even if they're not straw men, arguments that are fallacious ought to be challenged.

The problem you correctly identify as I see it is with the charge that liberalism "considers any attempt directly to impose a positive Good as the ultimate source of all evil."

In political theory at the radical and of the scale such a paradoxical statement may be understandable. But in any practical sense I don't think even the worst real world observations anyone could think of speak to that paradox with any clarity for a some very real reasons. The form of liberalism as we know it evokes tolerance including that for competing ideologies within liberal democracies. Thus watering down any more radical implementation of an ideological bent that might exclude the elements of other value systems leads to a range of hybridisations of liberalism rather than the pure practice of such ideological tenets as it might otherwise advocate. The radical form is therefore more honoured in theory than it has or probably will ever be in practice.

Anne L Plurabelle :

03 Nov 2012 11:58:19am

I think that the point is not that Mr Zizek promotes a straw version of liberalism, to successfully assert that you would have to present an overarching verifiable theory of liberalism that covers all behaviour to contrast Zizek's with, but that is not going to happen, any more than Mr Zizek, or anyone else,is going to succeed in doing its opposite. simply trotting out counter examples to each other proves nothing in social theory. Your putting yourself in the very difficult position of the sort of person who says " You can't judge Marx by Stalinism because Stalin was not a true Marxist."I am no expert on Mr Zizek but I suspect that his war on Post Modernism is based on the Hegelian notion that Society must reference a rationally based General Will whereas market liberalism simply associates General Will with frustrated ambition.

Azrael :

04 Nov 2012 4:05:52am

I agree that it is something of a straw man, but:(a) he recognises it as such by noting that he is referring to the most extreme form of liberalism (a multi-faceted term in philosophy, which can mean anything from market individualism to a simple desire that individuals be free to pursue their own cultural traditions even if anti-market); and(b) a large number of political writers do in fact hold the 'extreme' / straw-man version of liberalism that he describes.

What I am amazed at though, is he makes no reference whatsoever, positive or negative, to Charles Taylor's landmark work Atomism. In this and Taylor's critique of positive and negative liberalism, he agrees with all of Zizek's concerns, and argues that liberalism resting upon a communitarian base can both resolve those concerns and retain much of which is good about liberalism.

It is astounding that an author as widely read as Zizek would commence a piece on liberalism, lead to the conclusion that it entails atomis, and pay not even a citation to the work that started all the talk of atomism, and that argued that a liberalism without atomism must depend foremost on social institutions such as quality schools, libraries, parliaments, families of all kinds (Taylor's atomism is a superb platform for arguing the need to allow Gay marriage), welfare platforms and the other things that serve to create a group that happens to value the freedom to live your own way, rather than a bunch of disconnected, atomistic, individuals.

For those who think Zizek's depiction of extreme liberalism is the only true version of liberalism, then do yourself a favour and read Taylor's Atomism (I forget which collection it's in, but you can find out on the web and then go to your local uni library to read the piece for free - it's not even a long paper).

Or, if you want something meatier that makes the EXACT same point, but from a Marxist perspective, read MacIntyre's 'After Virtue'. When a Liberal like Taylor can happily take a Marxist as his primary inspiration, you need to accept that it's a broader term, and refer to more philosophies, than Zizek is giving it credit for.

Anne L Plurabelle :

05 Nov 2012 9:35:34am

It hardly surprising; Marxism and Bourgeois Liberalism both have the same end vision in mind, and the same notion of the apotheosis of human freedom/ self realization, as far as I can see. They just emphasis different aspects of the human condition. The bourgeois liberal slant is in the the last person standing position. Given that it is a regressive ideology one sees the discontents that first gave rise to Marxism rising again since that is the essence of the ideology, the are built into it as it were. It is just that Australians are largely ubiquitously bourgeois that masks it here, one needs to look globally. Zizak's larger point , if I understand him, is what will fill the void in the West left by the fall of Stalinism? Zizak seems to fear it will be a return to primitive state religion. This is where Pussy Riot, The Russian Othodox Church and the KGB Kremlin become an interesting indicator of things to come?

Bruce :

02 Nov 2012 3:01:42pm

Zizek highlights the ambiguity of the term “liberalism” (“libertarianism”, by the way, has a similar problem). In fact, the term is next to useless in defining the social worldview of an individual. Not much point in banging on about it endlessly.But in the face of ambiguous categorisations, people themselves continue to be internally consistent. It’s just a question of what to call them.I think there are still, broadly speaking, two types of individual – the “conservative”, and its opposite, which I would have called “liberal”, but I’ll use the term “nonconservative”. And I think the fundamental difference between the two is their degree of compassion – that is, concern for the wellbeing of others. All people have compassion; the vast majority of people care greatly about their family and friends. But a compassionate person has a greater tendency to care for the welfare of people outside their immediate circle – the great mass of humanity in general.So a nonconservative is more likely to espouse equality, tolerance for minorities, state support for the disadvantaged, etc. In contrast, a conservative free-market liberal, for example, is more likely to support maximum freedom from state regulation of financial transactions, and low taxation, while remaining socially conservative – for example, advocating the rule of law, traditional forms of punishment, intolerance of minorities, etc. And at the core, it’s a question of WHOSE liberty and walfare is of primary concern: for the nonconservative it’s more about “people in general”; for the conservative it’s more about “me and those who are like me”.Probably the ultimate model for the compassionate individual is Jesus Christ (whom you’d have to describe as a nonconservative!) – the figurehead of a church that is, ironically, embraced equally by lefties and righties!

Michael :

02 Nov 2012 8:13:27am

If anyone is interested for the wider context of his argument this passage I'm pretty sure is a small section of one of his books Living in the end times. Her e his argument and alternatives are a bit more developped.

Edward :

01 Nov 2012 9:50:06pm

Yes, I mostly agree with this article. Liberalism is very flawed and the common man knows it. He's bang on that left and right wingers argue for one thing and oppose things creating paradoxes all over the place. The common man is now evolved enough and aware enough of this world and the social systems that control it to know that democracy is not democracy but an economic technocracy - his choices are really considered and often ignored - take the carbon tax imposed on us or the war in Afghanistan or high taxes. We have very little choice in our politicians and this is summed up the most consistent comment I hear - "all politicians are the same and as bad as each other". Fukuyama argues that liberal democracy is as good as it gets. I hope not because as this article points out we are each not getting what we want out of it and we are each unhappy that there is no solution but this constant turnover from one political party to another. We are tired of no real choice and tired of eternal compromise. That is why democracy will end - because it has lead through multiculturalism and globalisation to a high state of conflictual politics and social organisation. The system is self-destructing because of itself.

casewithscience :

31 Oct 2012 3:26:21pm

Undoubtedly there is a difficulty in establishing what "harms" a liberal society decides to outlaw, but the problem is not systemic. Rather, the problem is that each harm must be reasoned according to its own characteristics. Thus, the generalisation of a problem in all liberal societies can be directed to individual identified harms (such as the Veggie Society or child sexuality) but no more. It can hardly be a criticism of liberal societies that they assess each potential harm individually, except if you were trying to assert that there was an overview or universal definition of the "good", but that would ultimately go against the truth propounded in liberal societies that, to the extent possible, each man shall have his own good. I always consider this greater truth as more pertinent and potential for evolution of a better society (and ultimately the reason that liberal societies tend to dominate social development) because it realises that truths or "goods" sought to be enforced from above, in a marxist or proscriptive fashion are ultimately not going to be perfect. Thus, it is better to give some freedom to all men and not bind them to a universal and imperfect set of values.

Pasquino :

31 Oct 2012 6:30:20pm

Its interesting how there's this consensus among some that liberalism by definition equals cultural relativism at its most extreme.Whether its 'liberalism' that creates this or not I'm not sure? However the major Eighteenth century texts on the subject constantly appeal to nature as a 'universal' good out of which human rights, liberty, equality AND fraternity, that is - social responsibility and community - emerge. Perhaps it is not a question of being for or against liberalism but rather championing a "humanist liberalism" as a means of negating an inhumane one?? Perhaps the term liberal actually enfolds TWO quite different outcomes for society? Would the reality of global warming even make more pressing aliberalism that equates the "good" and 'social fraternity' with our environment?

Pasquino :

31 Oct 2012 6:39:18pm

A summarizing thought: Is it even a "pseudo-liberalism" that has emerged that champions liberty and equality while ignoring and making expendable fraternity? Is the liberal 'message' of the Enlightenment contradicted by modern society ie there is no true and complete 'liberty' or 'equality' if there is not social fraternity.

Barj :

30 Oct 2012 1:36:02am

Winston Churchill had a sense of humour. His political stance was too far to the right form my tastes but that does not stop me from admiring his clear sighted reasoning and his ability as a writer. What I think he meant is that politics is necessarily a dirty game. As you acknowledged, attempts to create a utopia always fail. Like it or not, the separation of legal justice from moral goodness is necessary because one man’s moral goodness is all too often another man’s immoral persecution.

You ask who in the absence of share mores, will decide what counts as harassment. The answer we have to date, is twelve good men (or women), guided by professionals in the law, and if this fails, then a referendum.

Of course the market is the domain of egotistical cheating and lying, human nature being what it is, but it evens out because the buyers are no better that the sellers. And I very much doubt that we would like it any other way. Of all the ills we have to bear, boredom is arguably one of the worst and if an ideal world did exist, I think it would be extremely boring.

brazza :

29 Oct 2012 11:01:31pm

I am grateful for the appearance of this fine piece and the commentary too. Years ago I watched a disorderly drunk on a Melbourne train proclaiming that PM RG Menzies was a parasite. A gentleman loudly demanded the drunk's removal from the train. I am happy to see such language removed from this debate. The better word here is symbiosis. We all need each other, for jobs, for skills, for insights, and for the moral and economic thinking that makes up a sensible civilisation. I agree that our political and economic system lacks finesse. Whose doesn't? Australians like their intellectual debate with biffo, but I don't see it lifting the wit or the tone. Welcome to the symbiosis.

Barj :

30 Oct 2012 1:51:30pm

Sorry again. I confused the text I wrote last night, about Churchill, with one I intended to write about Menzies. What I intended to say is that I was old enough at the time to know that Menzies was at his best when being heckled. Many people, at the time, liked to joke about the possibility of his hiring the hecklers. Although I did not and still do not agree with Menzies’ politics, I did, and still do, admire his sense of humour and the way he encouraged everyone to speak out, no matter how unflattering or even crude the statement was.

excelsior :

Jim :

29 Oct 2012 11:12:06am

Having read a few of Mr Zizek's articles, I've noticed that he tends to create (in my opinion/understanding) a strawman, which he then sets fire to later in the article.

His strawmen are generally constructed from an extremist view of a particular philosophy - in this case, liberalism. To most people, "little l" liberalism does not mean that everything is permitted and that anything is acceptable. Morals still exist - otherwise, presumably, laws would not exist - but (and this is the important point) in general, as long as your practice does not hurt other people, it is typically permitted.

Of course, there are some exceptions to this - polygamy is generally not permitted in liberal societies - but it's not as unbalanced as Mr Zizek would have us believe.

Ultimately, if you take *any* philosophy to its extreme, it will be absurd. This is where the idea of a happy balance, or compromise, comes in useful.

Hudson Godfrey :

29 Oct 2012 1:43:19pm

You're not the first to accuse Zizek of perpetrating a straw man fallacy here, but perhaps you could explain what it is that makes you say that?

I may not agree entirely with him either, but just because he may be the first thoroughly post post-modern exponent of Marxist thinking you've ever read doesn't grant one leave to simply dismiss him in those terms. His proposition, that liberalism is flawed, is maintained throughout and argued, albeit in his characteristically sporadic style, through a collection of critiques. I see no straw man in evidence.

Joe :

31 Oct 2012 1:59:05pm

Hudson,

As you well know all systems, whether they are systems of thought, like liberalism or systems of society like monoculturalism or multiculturalism or any other type of system for that matter, are ultimately flawed. Any system has its weaknesses and it strengths, the key is to understanding the environment in which the systen operates while using the strengths of the system to maximise benefits but at the same time working to counter the systems weaknesses. And understand while some systems are clearly better than others, it is true that no one system is best for all changes that can occur in the environment and that the perfect system, one size fits all system does not exist. Clearly different systems perform better in different situations and any system can be gamed to a persons or a groups advantage.

We have Godel to thank for his incompleteness theorem for proving the failings of systems to us.

Hudson Godfrey :

31 Oct 2012 5:42:16pm

True on both counts, and I love a good mathematician as much as the next person, but I think the reason why one size does not fit all is as obvious as saying that just as no two people are the same neither are their perspectives.

Robin :

01 Nov 2012 9:31:34am

Poor old Gödel does get presented as support for all sorts of things.

As I can recall his incompleteness theorems showed 1) that there were propositions stateable with PM but not decideable within PM and 2) that for any axiomatic system in which all stateable propositions are decidable then there will be some propositions of number theory that will not be stateable within that system.

That does not say anything one way or another about the perfectability of social systems.

Anne L Plurabelle :

29 Oct 2012 2:41:53pm

"Having read a few of Mr Zizek's articles, I've noticed that he tends to create (in my opinion/understanding) a strawman, which he then sets fire to later in the article."

No he doesn’t. What is interesting is that in the bloggomire "strawman" has become a sort of hand grenade term, unrelated to the fallacy, to try and demean an argument people don’t like. The trouble is, like here, its usually a damp squib.By the By the author acknowledges that he is talking about radical forms of liberalism.

Robin :

01 Nov 2012 9:11:56am

OK, let's unpack it.

Strawman #1 the automatic pairing of radical liberalism with political correctness. I have spent a good deal of time among people who could fall into the radical liberal category and most of them were very antipathetic to the idea of political correctness and it's Daddy - ideological soundness, long before conservatives jumped on that bandwagon. These things grew out of a very illiberal form of Communism

Anne L Plurabelle :

02 Nov 2012 9:38:33am

OK, let's unpack itStrawman #1

Excellent. This is a perfect use of the strawman fallacy to demonstrate on:You latch onto the term "political correctness" as a market liberal anathematic dog whistle assert something diametrically opposed to what the author asserts and proceed to strut the strawman as if it were a perfect fisk. Namely that Mr Zizak condemns liberalism for supporting political correctness. What Mr Zizak does do is correctly notice that ( especially in American parlance) the term "Liberal" has two contrasting meanings. One Left one Right. Mr Zizak correctly, if somewhat hegelianly, asserts that there appears to be no chance of a synthesis between these terms.The problem is any reader will notice that Mr Zizak is asserting that the classic liberal position ( from Hobbes to Hayek)that there needs to be a separation between law (a public responsibility) and morality (a private responsibility ) negatively with the (American liberal) Vygotskian position that we need a common moral code of common decency that is socially consistent to bind us ( the root of the socialist political correctness notion). In short your fisk is real classic attempt to attack Mr Zizak for something not asserted at all by your refusing to address the odd way the term liberal is used in English. I have no intention of boring readers by becoming pedantic with your other elements of the fisk but I may return to unpick them as time allows.

Robin :

You appear to misunderstand what a straw man is and therefore misunderstand what I am saying.

A straw man is s misrepresentation of a position in order to make it easier to attack.

It is all well and good for him to talk of the two political meanings of liberalism, but why does he have to inaccurately link left wing liberalism with political correctness unless it is to make it an easier target?

Incidentally these two meanings are not so different if you understand the historic and philosophic roots of liberalism.

Anne L Plurabelle :

03 Nov 2012 12:57:45am

Well I may misunderstand what you mean by a strawman,perhaps that cant be helped, but I am reasonably familiar with the usual meaning of the term in English, I believe. What you are doing is setting up a strawman by reversing,and thus misrepresenting Mr Zizak. Both, or rather all, uses of the appellation "liberal" are political and, it seems, ideological just in a trivial sort of way.

Robin :

01 Nov 2012 9:16:30am

Strawman #2 - representing a position by it's extremes. If I wanted to criticise Christianity I could decide the the Westboro Baptist Church would be representative of Christianity as a whole. Of course that would be ridiculous. The "Veggie Pride" group or the unspecified groups of obese activists do not represent liberalism, not even radical liberalism. In fact their stated positions are decidedly illiberal.

Robin :

01 Nov 2012 9:22:32am

Strawman #3 If you read the article he frequently states that liberals "want .." or "say ... " and so on without actually citing any actual liberal who has said these things. This is the very essence of straw man - deciding for yourself what a particular position is without reference to anybody who might actually hold that position.

Hudson Godfrey :

01 Nov 2012 7:43:59pm

Robin,

I could I think easily carry the day arguing that not every fallacy, smuggled in or otherwise, is a straw man. You've proposed too many anyway. Some are just points you'd disagree with Zizek about. I too have some reservations some though by no means all of which concur with your own.

#1 Zizek doesn't even use the term political correctness until halfway through the article, and even there the characterisation seems to me to be only in passing.

#2 If you're going to use Westbro Baptists as an example when he doesn't even mention them then it tends to undermine an otherwise valid criticism of his actual poor example, the reference to Veggie Pride. It is a fallacy to appeal to extremes if that's the only characterisation that is made. In this case I don't think it is, and sometimes obvious kinds of examples just mean to highlight tendencies that are there to a lesser extent in less obvious cases. At least that's how I read it, much as I agree that he could have used a better example.

#3 Sorry but this one really isn't a straw man, it's a claim of inaccuracy from lack of citation. A little citation I don't mind, and there is a little here as counterpoint to your claim, but it is after all a short essay not a dissertation. As far as I can see you disagree with his characterisation of Liberals, as do I in parts, just not necessarily the same parts.

#4 This is argument by way of disagreement not straw man. You say "it isn't the same thing". There are two possibilities. Either Zizek would not agree that Liberals want the best possible society by your definition, or they are effectively the same thing to the extent that the first step on the path towards the "best possible" will inevitably take you away from the most evil and towards the "least evil". It hinges of differences between definitions of best possible and least evil that seem like hair splitting to me, though I would wholeheartedly agree that your definition adopts more positive language and might therefore be preferable.

Before I end, your claim that the best possible society "will never be a perfect one", may be axiomatic to your objection to Zizek. That depends on whether you meant to infer that as an ideology liberalism does in fact propose a certain view to a perfect society. If so I'm afraid some of his criticisms may well be accurate. But if I had to pick the part of his argument that I had the most trouble with then it would be the premise that he sets out in his opening paragraph. He is defining liberalism in terms of what it rejects as much as what it proposes using generalisations that I'm frankly surprised fewer people have taken issue with.

Robin :

Hudson Godfrey wrote: " He is defining liberalism in terms of what it rejects as much as what it proposes using generalisations that I'm frankly surprised fewer people have taken issue with. "

I don't have much of an issue with that. It is, as you say, a short article so it would be unrealistic to expect him to deal with more than generalisations. That would be OK if they were accurate or representative generalisations. My point is that they are not.

And I don't think it is unfair to define a position in terms of what it rejects as much as it proposes.

Hudson Godfrey :

On the Westbro Baptists thing, no I read you correctly, so read me correctly and in full. Zizek just isn't using this example elsewhere as one does when guilty of the straw man fallacy.

About your call for citations, it wouldn't matter how much citation he offered the lack of it does not a straw man argument make. Seems to me he's arguing his own opinions rather than drawing upon others most of the time anyway.

At the point where you ask "Do you really think that is what he is saying?", I don't think he's saying the "there would be something wrong with wanting the" least evil, so I don't think that I accept your premise.

Hudson Godfrey :

It would indeed reflect a different perspective from Zikek's to try and take anything one step at a time would it not?

Do you think liberalism can be accurately represented? That is probably the better question.

Either that, or if asked whether I think that he focuses too much on the faults of liberalism by picking out the kinds of examples that could hardly form part of a constructive critique, then the answer might well be in the affirmative.

I'd say he's fairly accurate in many of the critiques he's made of the aspects of failures within Western Liberal societies that he has picked out. Though I'd add that blind Freddie could tell you that among those ideologies held by groups as disparate as Veggie Pride and free marketeers there might indeed be little common ground. And to be fair he points out these differences in a way that far from being called a straw man argument might if inaccurate be tagged with that other political cliché, the false dichotomy. Against even that charge I'd be inclined to defend his examples as more accurate than not given that he's arguing for the existence of contradictions at the extremes rather than the non-existence of consistencies at the middle of the spectrum. His point seems to be that when pushed liberalism relies too heavily on what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature" or what Hayek called "spontaneous order". So as a matter of political theory he may well have a point, but then you have to come back to values and expectations in order to accurately interrogate the worth of any political theory in practice. Freddie could tell you that among those ideologies held by groups as disparate as Veggie Pride and free marketeers there might indeed be little common ground. And to be fair he points out these differences in a way that far from being called a straw man argument might if inaccurate be tagged with that other political cliché, the false dichotomy.

He also uses the well worn Churchill quote "democracy is the worst form of government except all the others", equating democracy with liberal democracy (not too much of a stretch), to illustrate the point that as a utopian system liberalism doesn't set

Hudson Godfrey :

Thanks for this follow up. If we can leave the straw men well out of it and stick to the veracity of his generalisations then I think we're more likely than not to find common ground.

While I don't think and didn't say that it was unfair to define a position in terms of what it rejects as opposed to what it proposes, the inference is clearly that the position in question may be incompletely defined and thus misrepresented in any ensuing discussion of its merits. I'm just raising the question as to whether that might rather have been at the seat of your unease with this piece much as we've already established we found some of the generalisations unconvincing on the face of it.

Greg :

30 Oct 2012 7:34:13am

Actually if one takes his construction as the natural trajectory of liberalism rather than necessarily the status quo, it holds very true. And to answer the question, the laws which liberal relativism is in the process of deconstructing were founded upon an agree "good", based upon a common understanding within the Judeo-Christian societies in which they were crafted. This consensus no longer exists in the postmodern world. To paraphrase Sartres, in a liberal society when the majority are Nazis, fascism is the "truth"...

MD :

Hudson Godfrey :

28 Oct 2012 4:37:12pm

This is very interesting but only the first paragraph of it really resonates with me. The imposition of one's own view onto others being indeed something I would heartily condemn.

The idea that human nature is egotistic leading somehow inexorably to the notion of "private goodness, public disaster" doesn't strike a chord with me. Perhaps the wheels started to come off with the idea that moral exhortations (I include ethics) are somehow unrealistic.

Lacking for me in all this is the principle of reciprocity. That which in free market libertarianism is supposed be the self righting mechanism, failing only when markets fail to value things properly and produce so called unintended consequences. In moral or ethical terms an understanding that good and evil or merely the concept of well-being can be assumed to exist doesn't have to mean that we're required to say that it is equivalent in all cases. Each case being a separate individual person who we're bound to acknowledge has a different perspective if only slightly from all others. So the private and the public good intersect visa a vis some set of commonly held values, and thus can perhaps be said to contain singular and collective egos.

If the collective ego compliments the expression of individualism in the manner that I think it might infer that, as with an ethical marketplace, some sense that unintended consequences have to be owned by society as a shared responsibility that might hove into view and settle this argument without need of the any morally absolutist impositions.

Hudson Godfrey :

02 Nov 2012 12:07:20am

ER,

I appreciate the response but I hope I'm not so ignorant of Marxist thought to be unfamiliar of its use of certain stereotypes. Nor am I so disinclined to it as to reject Marxism out of hand on the basis of the undeserved reputation some people tend to emphasise.

As is often the case though that I find myself questioning the accuracy of the stereotypes people propose. While I assure you I did follow the context, my real meaning was just that I agreed with Zizek's stereotyping of liberals only up to a point. It may just be that I think less like either a liberal or a Marxist than I'd have liked to in order to be able to take more away from his polemic, or should I say anti-polemic.

MD :

28 Oct 2012 10:48:41am

If liberal individualism is regarded as parasitic because it's a progressive increment beyond whatever it's built upon, that charge can be levelled against all forms of socialisation. If you posit that it's undesirable on that basis, you've also got to define your own preferred conservatism. The critical deconstruction of one methodology is pointless without context.

Pasquino :

I'm also wondering what is the 'other than liberalism' that is needed ?

And as a Anne Plurabelle raised, is it extreme liberalism that's being spoken about here, or liberalism in general?

I posit the view that no over-arching theory can explain culture, whether in the positive or the negative. I always had a problem with the very methodology of philosophy at uni, as it seemed to treat ideas as monoliths that were in contention with other intellectual monoliths. Perhaps Zizek, while addressing culture, falls short by not going deeper than the concept of liberalism itself.

barsnax :

28 Oct 2012 3:09:22am

After reading this article (and looking half the words up in the dictionary) I've come to the conclusion that Liberalism and the market system it loves gives us our high standard of living enabling us to have the time to question all moral issues. Unfortunately it also makes our humanity and the well being of the planet take a back seat to "The Economy".

Barj :

30 Oct 2012 2:01:46am

No Barsnak, Liberalism does not give us our high standard of living. I think you meant liberalism (i.e. small “l” liberalism). However, when it comes to what make our humanity and the well being of the planet take a back seat to “The Economy”, then the capital “L” is probably more to the point.

Robin :

Hudson Godfrey :

01 Nov 2012 3:30:53pm

Concision can sometimes be overrated. Great in a lawyer but for a thinker like Zizek the incongruity of ideas that don't quite fit together points either to patterns we've sought but not found or perhaps to the fact that they don't exist. If it's all too hard because concision eludes him then it's probably because he's asking hard questions, which for mine are usually the right kind.

Martin Snigg :

It assumes family and Christian socialisation of virtue will continue, and that after their work political liberalism can be arbitrator. Well that was fine 230 years ago.

But now. If anyone wants to be taken seriously they have to be able to take a measure of how far these 'liberal' principles have destroyed the subsidiary institutions from which liberalism takes its life. [Mary Eberstadt]

seb :

28 Oct 2012 12:28:20pm

Presumably against it, if it was shown that such relationships were damaging to society or to the children of such relationships. Their is absolutly no evidence that gay marriage will negativly effect anyone, so why would anyone be against it?

Barj :

30 Oct 2012 2:11:14am

What kind of twisted logic led you to equate gay marriage with polygamy? One plus one makes two. One plus one has always made two and will always make two. Sexual preference cannot, has not and will not ever alter arithmetic.

Jonno :

29 Oct 2012 5:32:02pm

and in a slightly more complex view:

The left will vote for the labor party, the right for the liberal party. Each party will then vote for their leader who will then do what he/she wants to in order to stay in power, regardless of the people who voted for the party that voted to put them in power

Aven :

afeministmother :

26 Oct 2012 4:51:33pm

This is a very interesting article.

"The problem is here the obvious arbitrariness of the proliferation of these ever-new rules."

With regard to the above comment I would like to comment though, that I think that women in particular fare very poorly in this climate. At a time when violence against women and girls around the world has reached epic proportions we find that our identity as women as a group of people with basic things in common, is being deconstructed almost to the point of erasure. With the dismantling of meta narratives and the continuing strength of the patriarchial construct of our culture, how can we come together if women, as an oppressed class, are so relentlessly undermined by liberal notions of choice, agency and empowerment? The charge of cultural imperialism and essentialism is seeing women marginalized and silenced – stories of the empowered sex worker, the agency of the lap dancer, or the woman choosing plastic sugery to confrom to beauty ideals, disguises the misery of so many women and girls who suffer self-loathing and or violence on a daily basis. Think of the prostituted women, the trafficked women, the one in five who will suffer sexual assault or the one who will die every week at the hands of an intimate partner. The rich,white men of privelige at the top end of town have capitalized – women's and girls' bodies from birth are a commodity. With the advent of neoliberalism in this postmodernism world abuse has soared – the exploitation of women as “gestational carriers” in India, the renewed political attack on women's reproductive rights, and the power and scope of the mega industries of pornography and prostitution, are a few examples. This is not all new, but it is misery and exploitation writ large and it's a pretty sad state of affairs after the gains made in the second wave of feminism. Liberalism has failed women in some very important ways.

Bud R :

Has violence against women and girls reached epic proportions? Epic in proportion to what?When did this moment begin?

When was your "identity as women as a group of people with basic things in common" recognised? Who recognised it and were any women excluded?

I don't think such a consensus was reached, and a kind of a violence would have been necessary to reach such a consensus (e.g. marginalising the "non-basic" things, silencing the voices of dissent that make consensus impossible).

How do stories of agency disguise stories of misery? Are you suggesting that people can only fit one story in their mind? I don't see how believing in the agency of the lap dancer precludes one from also recognising the distinction between that scenario and one that involves trafficked women.

I think recognising the agency of the lap dancer emphasises what is wrong with the trafficking of women (or men, like those who labour to build hotels in Dubai - false pretenses, deprivation of liberty - they don't seem dissimilar to me).

Obviously, you're able to distinguish between the two so why isn't it sufficient that others may recognise, and act in accordance with, this difference?

Hudson Godfrey :

30 Oct 2012 1:00:23pm

When you self-identify as feminist then in looking at Zizek through the prism of your own particular take on feminism it appears you've managed to pull off the unlikely trick of being wrong about both at the same time.

To take what Zizek wrote about liberalism here and make it specifically about feminism is to overlook the bulk of what he says at the expense of missing his point entirely.

Whereas to conflate the gender politics of feminism with some of the other issues you raise makes the classic liberal mistake Zizek does clearly identify in his opening paragraph, "...imposition of one's own view onto others...". He merely neglects to point out that Liberalism is hardly the only ideology that commits this crime of all crimes.

When Zizek says that removal of "moral temptation" (in liberal ideology) is a precondition to "civil peace and tolerance", then he is making a critique of liberalism that questions whether "counting on [our] true nature, not on moral exhortations" would be preferable.

I think feminism distilled to its more reliably gender egalitarian tenets can be described as a kind of moral exhortation that is supportable because it contributes to human well-being. That is to say that I'd draw some distinctions between moral exhortations that the majority of people do reciprocate and those that they don't.

Feminism in some senses is also a very liberal project to the extent that they share a common interest in liberty and equality.

To pick but one of your examples; the problem of society valuing beauty, raises the issue of inequality between women some of whom are more subjectively beautiful than others, but not strictly between the genders. If it could reasonably be argued that all or even most women would eschew the idea of beauty if not for the influence of men, then it might be possible to say that beauty is a feminist issue and that the genders will never be equal until the "moral temptation" of beauty is expunged. If Zizek's description is accurate and that means relying upon our true nature to promote greater well-being then where does that leave us?

Where it leaves me is drawing the distinction between the long list of almost hyperbolic moral exhortations you appear to want to make on behalf of women's well-being and either feminism itself, or tenets that most people would unreservedly reciprocate. The fact is that most of the problems you're concerned with aren't really feminist issues, and nor does it seem to me that the failure you bemoan is that of liberalism in practice so much as a thorough rejection of liberalism that would never allow it to be practiced. It implies a level of disdain for our better nature that like Zizek fails to explore the influence of relativism or the principle of reciprocity.

Anne L Plurabelle :

03 Nov 2012 11:18:40pm

"He merely neglects to point out that Liberalism is hardly the only ideology that commits this crime of all crimes."

I realise that I may be a bird of very little brain but my reading of Mr Zizak's first paragraph lead me to believe that he is asserting that forcing ideology upon another is what liberals believe is a crime of crimes rather than a crime which Mr Zizak is attributing to liberals ideologists. Personally I would agree with you neo liberalism has taken on the form of religious ideology which is why it is preached as the way to heaven but that is not what Mr Zizak seems to me to be saying.

Hudson Godfrey :

04 Nov 2012 8:47:29pm

Okay you got me, I realised I'd been kack-handed in a couple of my attempts to articulate my ideas in that post, and there's no edit button, so I wondered whether anyone was ever going to notice. the sentence needed a complete re-write.

He conveniently neglected to point out that liberalism is hardly the only ideology that rejects this crime of all crimes.

A lesson I think in how a couple of ill chosen words are apt to revise the entire meaning of the sentence, though not I hope the entire content of the larger point that I wanted to make.

Simon :

Pam :

26 Oct 2012 3:22:16pm

I am puzzled as to why liberalism - "respectful and accepting of behaviour or opinions different from one's own" - takes the gigantic leap, in Slavoj's opinion, into "permissiveness". In multicultural Australia our diversity has always been a strength of our society.

Liberalism also does not have to mean political correctness gone haywire as Slavoj also seems to imply.

William Reid Cheatham :

29 Oct 2012 7:52:33am

b/c liberalism means 'hands off.' You're free to do whatever you want, as long as you're not hurting someone else. That's the basic tenet of liberalism. A liberal society is by definition a permissive society. You have permission in a way that people living under other systems of government would never have. In a liberal society, for example, consumption, drugs, sex, etc., have very few restrictions. It's not necessarily a bad thing. He's just saying it's a consequence of a liberal gov't / society.

Pam :

29 Oct 2012 3:23:27pm

William, I guess definitions of liberalism may vary! I regard "liberalism",in a political context, as "favouring individual liberty, free trade, and moderate political and social reform". Individual liberty does not have to mean free-wheeling, anything goes, it's all about "me". I think individual liberty can mean a freedom to choose to be very conservative. I believe very much in diversity - how boring society would be if we all fitted into some neat package!

Pasquin :

30 Oct 2012 5:00:49pm

I would add to that Pam some examples where a moral cohesive cultural view has actually been promoted by a combination of both Christianity and liberal thought. John Wesley's call to boycott products from slave run sugar plantations and rum manufacture in the Americas is in many respects the antecedent of GetUp today. I gather Wesley also coined the phrase 'agree to disagree' I think within the context of his theological differences towards George Whitefield.Wesley's words in an anti-slavery tract of 1743 read like the language of the American constitution:

'Liberty is the right of every human creature, as soon he breathes the vital air; and no human law can deprive him of that right which he derives from the law of nature... Give liberty to whom liberty is due, that is, to every child of man, to every partaker of human nature. Let none serve you but by his own act and deed, by his own voluntary'

No doubt there were those in that time who quoted Lev. 25:44-46, 'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.'

Religion in the Eighteenth century thus became a manifestation of the culture of its time without subtracting from any sense of its own integrity.In fact religious integrity was contingent to how it adapted to the moral zeitgist.Of course one can also argue the case that religion can also mirror the less moral, or immoral aspects of liberal thought too.

As our government seeks to change the law regarding the legal rights of refugees to land in Australia, we do well to remember an argument in one of Wesleys abolitionist sermons, that every culture is equal in its civility and we therefore have no grounds for treating people differently based on the circumstances they find themselves in or of where they come from.

Mel :

31 Oct 2012 3:47:10am

The problem for Eastern-European writers like Zizek is that the excesses and failures of communism is still too fresh in the minds of us and them. So they have this self imposed embargo on mentioning the good that the communists did-health education and the like- and limit themselves to attacking liberal Western values and demoralising us in the hope that we will do the job for them. The problem for the West is recognising what an insidious lot Zizek and his ilk are.

Pam :

Graham English :

31 Oct 2012 3:22:11pm

Raymond Aron’s describes liberalism:...the liberal believes in the permanence of humanity’s imperfection, he resigns himself to a regime in which the good will be the result of numberless actions, and never the object of conscious choice. Finally, he subscribes to the pessimism that sees, in politics, the art of creating the conditions in which the vices of men will contribute to the good of the state (The Opium of the Intellectuals 1955).Tony Judt defines liberals thus:A liberal is someone who opposes interference in the affairs of others: who is tolerant of dissenting attitudes and unconventional behaviour. Liberals have historically favoured keeping other people out of our lives, leaving individuals the maximum space in which to live and flourish s they choose. In their extreme form, such attitudes are associated today with self-styled ‘libertarians’, but the term is largely redundant. Most liberals remain disposed to leave other people alone (Ill Fares the Land, 2012).What is it with public intellectuals like Zizec? Especially those with a central European background. Why take the extreme position then demolish it? It is what Hitchens and Dawkins do with religion. Anyone can shoot down extremes that almost no one believes or practices. Why doesn’t he engage with Aron or Judt, reasonable people instead of with nameless holders of mad positions?

On the Wider Web

In his vastness and mobility, G.K. Chesterton continues to elude definition: He was a Catholic convert and an oracular man of letters, a pneumatic cultural presence, an aphorist with the production rate of a pulp novelist. Poetry, criticism, fiction, biography, columns, public debate - the phenomenon known to early-20th-century newspaper readers as "GKC" was half cornucopia, half content mill.

Unfortunately, coverage of this debate by the mass media is typically one-sided and emotive. Viewers, listeners, and readers are subjected to a succession of heart-rending human interest stories of sick or paralysed people who want assisted suicide. As the saying goes, "If it bleeds, it leads." These stories seem designed not only to tug on public emotion, but to tug it in one direction: toward legalization. To the extent that opposing views are aired at all, they are often caricatured as "religious" - despite the fact that legalization has long been opposed by secular bodies like the World Medical Association.

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